Screaming Skull
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Tuesday 30 June, 2009.
A high-tech Unmanned Aerial Vehicle developed by a team of ten undergraduates from Delhi College of Engineering in New Delhi has won the prestigious Unmanned Aircraft System International Competition held recently in the US.
The DCE team surpassed 26 teams from top ranking American Institutes like MIT, Cornell University to notch the widely-acclaimed Directors Award organized by Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) in association with US Navy.
"The team was awarded a cash prize of USD 1,500 for successfully flying at the competition as well as for the best team efforts," R K Sinha, Dean Industrial Research and Innovations in DCE told a news agency.
Talking about the special features of the gadget, Sinha said, UAV, a fixed-wing aircraft powered by a 2-stroke engine, is capable of lifting weights up to 7 kgs, equipped with wireless cameras, sensors, GPS and onboard computers capable of long range wireless communications of more than 10 km.
"The entire autopilot and navigation system of the UAV was designed and developed by the team headed by Rochak Chadha, a second year student of Electronics and Communication Engineering supervised by the seniors in the college," Sinha added.
The competition was held at a US Navy base in Maryland from June 17 to June 22. In 2006, a DCE team had won the similar award under best innovation category. (RBY-29/06)
UAV developed by DCE wins prize in US - www.ddinews.com[/QUOTE]
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Here is the 2009 Student UAS Competition website.
2009 Student UAS Competition
Mission objectives-
The mission objectives are for an unmanned, radio controllable aircraft to be launched and transition or continue to autonomous flight, navigate a specified course, use onboard payload sensors to locate and assess a series of manmade objects in a search area prior to returning to the launch point for landing. The scenario of the mission is that you need to operate your system as part of the overall team which supports the United States Marine Corps. It will be entering a simulated combat zone that has both hostile forces and innocent civilians. It shall fly from its operating airfield to the combat zone along a predefined route that is designed to segregate it from manned aircraft as well as enemy air defenses. However your system will need to adjust its route at the last minute just prior to or after takeoff to avoid emerging threats. Additionally, while in route to the combat zone, your system will be asked to positively identify and provide accurate locations of targets that other platforms had detected. Once in the search area, your system will be asked to search the area and detect, identify, and provide the location and orientation of targets within the combat zone. It will also be asked to identify a target at a known location and to determine the location of a specific target. Additionally, if new intelligence dictates, the search area will be modified during the mission to examine a "popup" target (the "nofly" boundaries will remain unchanged). The Marines intend to call in an air strike based on your correct identification and location of hostile forces and put troops in harms way to protect innocent civilians. Therefore accurate identification and location are critical. Additionally, targets and civilians tend to move, so completing your mission objectives in a timely fashion is also important.
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It is indeed laudable that guys from DCE managed to pull off such an arduous task with such limited resources at their disposal compared to MIT, Cornell, UCSD etc. Hats off to you guys!!! Keep up the good work
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